Roll out
Roll back the old songs
In the Woe Is Me Hotel
The hush puppy lobby
With a coat check bell boy
Who waits in an ivory stroller
Decked out in plaid
The way out way my man

“He’s in the wood”

That neighborhood
Is a whole lot of hand jive
And a little bit of thought
I’d like to check out
Your inner adult
More than that new club
And you would’ve liked me
To have been a pretty girl

But frankly I don’t remember
What was in your best interest baby
When your ghost tried to catch a cab
For a headless tribute on a vending machine
It was a granite list memorial
A witty cellular stone

You were such a kidder
I was such a mystic

Can you handle that
Miss Amazing
Ly disconnected

Strum

Your family name
Ended with you
Another cycle
Another moon
pulls me into
who?

I see your lips
Lodged in the velvet sky
I’ve stock piled some stars
In this majestic roof
Fretted with golden dreams
For you

A night complicated by windshields
Voices lead me
But I’m too frustrated to explain
The pain

We tried to skip rocks
Box set lists
Trap hub cap
Congregations
With our matchbook bluff
We juggled the dirty looks
We lived life the way it should be

Empty

Constituents
situate your selves
On water
And watch

You’ll suffer the short wave sea sickness
With a trademarked tweak

He had goose bumps on his bicep
I didn’t expect him to reciprocate

Head beam billons
A belief in spacecraft flutters
Like butter
Four directions
Misperceptions
baptism in sweat
beneath wingless angels
wrapped in sheets
oscillating constantly
everywhere
a sharp point
pop in the perfect tempo
on the downtime
backbeat

I called

And hung up
On your machine

I used to send those hugs
Across miles
I’ve never been able
Or agile enough
To pull it off
For real

The sooner you try
The sooner you know
It’s too deep to feel shallow
It’s just me and your shadow

From bed to futon to bathroom floor
A little bit of teenage smut
We never melted we simply cracked

Bear your back side treat
From forth the fatal loins
Or so it goes
And so it went
The same chords
With a different grimace
Roughed up and ragged
We accentuate the comedy
Pensive and plaintive
Sensuous in the universe

The last fare
Paid in full
And painted
In retrospective red

Ah yes
He was an angel
He was a petty thief
He was a junky
A saint
He was my best friend
He was a liar
A poet
Drummer Boy
A complete stranger
He was a kid

I’m chained to these statements
They keep me down
In disbelief
The fine truth I’ve blurred
And obscured

So don’t believe a word I utter

A private school
A public hanging
Just a touch
He was on the nod
When he offered
That stray endearment

A lone viola plays
in a subway station

Forget the movie
Just listen to the soundtrack

I wasn’t his lover
I was his enabler

Do you know what corpses say:

“Lost envelopes--
Road kill blood”

Call my bluff
I’m not capable of religious
belief now

I was young once too you know

Burn a hole in my pocket
A sarcastic burden

I’m a weak link
I’ll sever mine for old time’s sake

But if I had held my breath
Waiting for him to kick his habit
I would’ve been

6 feet under
5 years ago
4 drinks later
3 bags since
2 hits after
1 last time

the sooner you rise
the sooner you fall
in love
the sooner you try
the sooner you know
it’s too deep to feel shallow
hey it’s just
Me and your shadow

Another broken promise
Another frozen tear
The morning sun is golden
But it’s cold when you’re not here

David Aaron Greenberg is an artist and writer. He the author of Gravity (selected poems), co-author of 15 Paintings/15 Texts (with Donald Baechler) and Strange Messenger: The Work of Patti Smith. His writing on art and culture has appeared in Rolling Stone, Parkett, The Fader, Frank 151 and Art In America. Greenberg is one half of the songwriting/production team Disco Pusher.